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BY NATHAN ALLEN, M. D. 



Read at the Tenth Annual Meeting of the Anrierican Academy 
of Medicine at Pittsburg, Penn., Oct. 12, 1886. 



PHYSICAL CULT^ReJ)! 



BY NATHAN ALLEN, M.D. 



It is twenty-six years since gymnastic exercises 
were first introduced into Amherst College, as a dis- 
tinct department of education. It was an impor- 
tant event, not only in this institution but in the 
history of educational matters. Certain principles 
were then discussed and adopted which have had 
great influence, in making the experiment there a 
success. These principles are fundamental, and 
should be kept constantly in view in all attempts ta 
improve physical organization connected with edu- 
cation. 

At the annual meeting of the Trustees of Am- 
herst College in 1860, the writer was appointed 
chairman of a committee to consider and recom- 



* Read at the tenth annual meeting of the American Acad- 
emy of Medicine at Pittshurg, Penn., Oct. 12, 1886. 



2 

mend a plan and regulations for the government of 
this new department, and, having served every year 
since on the "gymnasium committee," he is quite 
familiar with the origin and history of this move- 
ment. The questions successfully settled here, will 
apply to every similar institution. One of the first 
questions which confronted us in this enterprise, 
was that the Trustees and Faculty of a College had 
no right in introducing gymnastic exercises, to 
make them compulsory — that all students must 
engage in them. It was said that all such exercises 
elsewhere had always been and were voluntary, and 
not made a necessary part of the curriculum of an 
institution ; that students did not come to college 
to have their bodies trained but to educate their 
minds. The answer was, if this education could 
not be prosecuted so successfully, nor the highest 
standard reached, without proper exercise of the 
body and the possession of good health, such exer- 
cises should certainly be required. 

As the Trustees made the laws of college, and 
were for the time being, the guardians of the 
students, they must know better than these pupils 
or their parents, what kinds of exercise were best 
adapted for their highest welfare and improvement. 
Lessons in mathematics and the languages are 
made compulsory, and if it is found that a certain 
training of the body enables the student to do this 
work easier and better, and by the same course he 
would maintain good health through college, this 
training of the body should by all means be com- 
manded. 



The second question was, in order to make these 
exercises successful and permanent, we must give 
them character. It was understood that, previously, 
gymnasiums, manual labor schools, and attempts at 
physical education generally had failed but there 
were good reasons for it. One was, the manner in 
which they had been carried on, was not adapted to 
develop and train the whole body in accordance 
with physiological laws. Another reason was, that 
not sufficient importance had been attached to this 
kind of education, by trustees and managers of 
institutions, by teachers, by the press and public 
opinion generally. 

The movers in this new department at Amherst 
determined to organize and start it in a manner to 
show that they regarded it of the very highest 
importance— not inferior to any other in college. 
The first step was to place at its head a thoroughly 
educated physician, who should be a member of the 
Faculty— equal in standing to any other teacher or 
professor in the institution. He should have the 
whole charge, not only of the gymnasium and its 
exercises, but he should be a teacher of Anatomy 
and Physiology, of Hygiene and Physical Culture. 
Besides, he should have a general oversight of the 
health of students, — should have a watchful care of 
them at all hours, and caution them against over- 
work in study as well as all irregular habits. In 
case a student was feeling unwell or complained of 
sickness of any kind, he could freely consult this 
teacher as though a family physician. Thus by 
having a living teacher at the head, who is a mem- 



ber of the Faculty and lias charge of the health of 
students, it was intended :to give this department 
the same position and prominence as any other 
bra.nch of study. Still further ; in making up the 
merit-roll of every student of his rank in the class, 
this branch was to come into the account— his 
attendance, his deportment, his interest, and the 
improvement from the exercises as far as it could 
be ascertained. In case a student had an organic 
difficulty of the heart or lungs, or any other physi- 
cal weakness that disabled him from going safely 
through with all the exercises required, he would be 
readily excused by the Professor. No one could 
judge of this so well as a teacher of physiology. At 
the same time, if a student in other departments of 
college wanted to get rid of any regular exercise, or 
get leave of absence, pretending to have some 
infirmity or to be sick, this medical teacher could 
easily settle the matter. 

KIND OF EXERCISES. 

The third question to be settled was to select and 
arrange a series of exercises— such as would be 
adapted to produce the best results in a college 
course of study. The immediate object was to exer- 
cise all parts of the body systematically, and in such 
a variety of ways that the student should maintain 
uniformly good health, and the whole system- 
including the brain— be brought into the best possi- 
ble working condition. Physiology as well as expe- 
rience teaches that what are called "light gymnas- 
tics" are best adapted for this purpose. 



In settling the kind of exercise, this depends 
upon what you want to accomplish. If you want 
to make expert ball players or boat rowers or train 
the body to excel in other out-door sports and games, 
particular muscles or parts of the body must be 
exercised for this express purpose. But in an insti- 
tution made up of large numbers, confined in close 
quarters, all engaged in hard study and wanting to 
make the most of their time, it is found that light 
gymnastic exercises, accompanied with music and 
systematically practiced a half hour or so every 
day, work best. At the same time, connected with 
them, other exercises such as marching, running, 
singing or of a sportive character should be prac- 
ticed at times for amusement and recreation. 

There is still another class demanding special 
personal attention. Suppose students come to col- 
lege with a physical system not well balanced — and 
there are many of this character— some one part or 
organ weak and liable to disease. This by careful 
examination can be easily detected. As in a college 
or any regular course of study, great and continu- 
ous strain must be made upon the body, it is highly 
Important that this weak part should be known and 
strengthened. The highest measure of health is 
where the whole physical system is well balanced— 
where all the organs are perfect or nearly so in 
structure and each performs its own legitimate 
function. This is the highest or normal standard 
of health. 

Now, by special physical exercise much can be 
done to change and improve distinct parts of the 



body in this direction. But it will be seen at once 
that such special personal exercises cannot be 
reduced to a system for all indiscriminately to prac- 
tice. This is individual work and must be a spe- 
cialty in physical training. At the same time, light 
gymnastic exercises are calculated to help these 
personal weaknesses or this defective organization 
by improving the general health. These two sys- 
tems of physical culture are each good in their 
place. 

The question may be asked what relation do the 
regular gymnastic exercises hold to out-door sports 
and games? We answer as auxiliaries, as helpers, 
but not as substitutes ; the objects are very differ- 
ent. Gymnastics are intended to exercise all the 
muscles in the body and to improve the general 
health and strength ; while ball playing, boat row- 
ing and other out-door sports call into exercise 
chiefly particular muscles and movements. Gym- 
nastic exercises are calculated to promote a har- 
mony, a balance of action and strength throughout 
every part of the body, while these sports increase 
the size and strength of certain portions of the 
body disproportionate to other parts. 

Each class has its own specific benefits. There 
can be no question, however, but the interest and 
zeal in carrying on physical exercises of any one 
kind, tends to increase it in all others ; especially 
where there is competition. In gymnastics there is 
less danger of injury to the body, and certainly far 
less risk to good morals. If these out-door sports 
are properly conducted— not carried to extremes— 



they may prove beneficial to students of all classes, 
but at the same time there is great danger of their 
abuse. After all, light gymnastics are altogether 
the best physical exercises for students in literary 
institutions. The danger is of carrying out-door 
sports and games too far, of consuming upon them 
too much time, of diverting attention from study 
and creating an unpleasant competition. 

TEACHERS OF GYMNASTICS. 

What has contributed much to the success of 
physical culture in Amherst College is the fact that 
it has had at its head a man admirably fitted for 
the place— Dr. Edward Hitchcock. In 1860, when 
this department started, Dr. J. W. Hooker, then a 
recent graduate of Yale College and also of the 
Medical School, was placed in charge of it. He had 
been thoroughly educated in physiology and hygiene, 
under the instruction of his father, Dr. Worthing- 
ton Hooker of Kew Haven, Ct., distinguished as a 
writer and teacher. Dr. Hooker made a fine start, 
but near the close of the year his health failed and 
he resigned and died in a short time afterward. 

In the summer of 1861, Dr. Edward Hitchcock, 
then a teacher in Williston Seminary, and a gradu- 
ate of the Medical School of Harvard University, 
was invited to take charge of this enterprise. The 
remarkable success that has attended his labors and 
instructions here for twenty-five years afford the 
best evidence of his peculiar fitness and qualifica- 
tions, that "the right man is in the right place." 
When this department started some looked at it as 



a doubtful experiment ; others feared it would be an 
encumbrance upon the institution, but the general 
verdict now, we believe, is, the college could not well 
get along without it. 

That Amherst College has taken the lead in phy- 
sical training and instruction, in respect to the laws 
of health there can be no question ; and that also 
great benefits have been derived from this course. 
Before presenting some facts bearing on this point, 
we give the testimony of an individual who ought 
to be a competent judge. Says President Eliot of 
Harvard University: "It is to Amherst College 
that the colleges of the country are indebted for a 
demonstration, for the proper mode of organizing 
the department of physical culture." 

It can, we believe, be safely stated that no other 
large literary institution in this country or in 
Europe has for a quarter of a century conducted 
physical education so successfully and so thoroughly 
as this college. One of the secrets of this success 
has been, that the department at its very start was 
placed upon high ground, was treated with an 
importance and character equal to the classics, or 
mathematics, and like these its exercises were made 
obligatory and its results, like these also, entering 
into the merit-roll of every student. But a stronger 
argument still, was that the students themselves 
became from year to year so convinced of the great 
advantages of these physical exercises in improving 
their health and perfecting their scholarship, that 
they would not give them up on any account. While 
the present rank of scholarship cannot be tested 



with what it would have been without these exer- 
cises, nor can it be compared with what it once was, 
before they were introduced, there can be no ques- 
tion but that the present scholarship of students is 
of a higher grade and character. 

HEALTH. 

In the matter of health the facts are more 
obvious. A careful account has been kept every 
year of the sickness or loss of time from every kind 
of complaint of the students, and it has been found 
to be steadily diminishing ; but what is more strik- 
ing, less and less in each class. The Freshman class 
have the most ; the Sophomore not so much ; the 
Junior still less, and the Senior the least of all. 
Thus year by year each class steadily improves in 
health, showing the immediate benefits of such 
exercises. This is the reverse of what occurred 
thirty, forty and fifty years ago as our experience 
extends over that period. No statistics of sickness 
or loss of time from illness were kept at that time, 
but we distinctly remember many cases of fever 
and other complaints of students breaking down in 
health and leaving college. In my own class there 
were seventy-two entering in 1832, but only thirty- 
eight graduated in 1836. There were five deaths in 
our college course and several more died within a 
few years afterwards. This class may be more 
marked for its changes than some others, but gen- 
erally the ranks of every class were more or less 
reduced by ill-health and death. Now very few 
students in college leave or give up study on account 



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of failing health. While we cannot give figures on 
this point we know there has been a decided improve- 
ment. 

Another marked feature resulting from phys- 
ical training, we believe, more than from any- 
other cause is a change in the countenance and 
physique of students. This applies particularly to 
students in the advanced classes and to those grad- 
uating. Perhaps no one thing affords stronger 
evidence of good health and a high state of vitality 
than the human countenance when carefully 
scanned by an expert sanitarian. Now from an 
experience of fifty years with the college and in 
attendance upon many commencements, we can 
testify that there has been a marked improvement 
in the countenance and physique of students. For- 
merly there were more or less students with pale, 
sallow countenances, sometimes too spare, with a 
haggard, care-worn look, and without much expres- 
sion ; but such a specimen is now seldom seen ; 
their countenances indicate a freshness and glow 
of health, with a clear skin and lineaments distinct 
and expressive, animated with highly-arterialized 
blood. 

The body is better and more evenly developed 
in all its parts, and when moving or standing, its 
position is erect. The limbs perform good service, 
with movements easy and graceful, but at the same 
time prompt and vigorous. The whole appearance 
of students, with the changes of countenances and 
movements of the limbs, indicate a high state of 
physical health, vigor and strength. 



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There is still another advantage gained, the value 
of which cannot be estimated in figures nor fully- 
described in language. By means of gymnastics 
and instruction in hygiene the constitution of the 
student has been greatly strengthened, and regular 
habits have been formed favorable to good health, 
not merely while in college but that will last through 
life. The student has thus laid the foundation for 
good health in all his future years. At the same 
time he has accumulated an amount of knowledge 
in respect to the laws of health which will become 
more and more valuable. 

President Eliot of Harvard University says : 
"The more 1 see of the future of young men who 
go out from these walls, the more it is brought 
home to me that professional success, and success 
in all the learned callings depends largely upon the 
vigor of body, and that the men who win great dis- 
tinction have that as the basis of their success." 
This testimony, we believe, can be substantiated by 
a multitude of witnesses. How important, then, 
that every young man in passing through college 
should preserve his vigor of body, yes, strengthen 
his whole system and learn to take the best possible 
care of it ! 

By means of the experience and knowledge these 
students obtain in respect to the laws of health, 
while in college they become afterwards teachers of 
sanitary science. From the great advantages which 
they have derived from it, they will be disposed by 
precept and example to extend its benefits to others 
coming under their influence. Thus a powerful 



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agency is introduced for diffusing valuable informa- 
tion in the community as to the preservation of 
health and prevention of disease. In this way an 
immense amount of good will be accomplished. 

There are still other advantages from this gym- 
nastic training. It is an essential aid in securing 
better discipline in the institution. These exercises 
serve to give a safe vent to an excess of animal 
spirits which otherwise might result in acts of mis- 
chief or trouble of some kind. This physical train- 
ing is calculated to develop not only all parts of the 
body, but to make it symmetrical and well balanced 
throughout. Such an organization tends to give its 
possessor self-reliance, self-control by means of 
which he can turn to better account the activities 
of both the body and the mind. 

We have stated that light gymnastics afford the 
best kind of exercise for students ; they harmonize 
with the laws which regulate the growth and 
changes in the various organs of the body ; they 
are convenient for use, and economize time ; they 
can be directed and controlled better than out-door 
sports and games : in fact, the great objection 
against inter-collegiate sports and games is they 
cannot be controlled or regulated by any one united 
power, there is constant friction and complaint, 
and not unfrequently ill-feeling and bad temper. 

EXAMPLE AND INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL 
CULTURE AT AMHERST. 

There is another point that deserves notice— the 
example in starting physical culture at Amherst 



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and its influence. In the history of education the 
time had probably come for some such develop- 
ment. At this period— about the middle of this 
century— the times had brought upon the stage men 
who had had much experience in educational affairs 
and were disposed to take a more practical view of 
the subject. Among these was the Rev. Wm. A. 
Stearns, D. D., who became President of Amherst 
College in 1854. He had resided many years in 
Cambridge and was for a long time a member of 
the State Board of Education. In his new field of 
labor, at the head of a large institution composed 
of young men, his attention was arrested by the 
failing health of many students, as well as the early 
death of several. With great earnestness he brought 
the subject before the Trustees and inquired if 
something could not be done for the physical educa- 
tion of students. This appeal produced at once a 
strong impression on the Board of Trustees. The 
writer having for years made a special study of 
physiology in its application to education and 
health, and fully appreciating the importance of 
good health to students in college, was prepared to 
second President Stearns's appeal and to enter 
heartily into the work. 

This department at Amherst was fortunate in its 
organization at the start. It soon became popular 
with the students and enlisted favorable notices 
from the press. Being something new, it attracted 
the attention of the public and especially those at 
the head of educational institutions. Within twen- 
ty-five years the interest has greatly increased in 



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the study of physiology and its application to phy- 
sical improvement connected with education and 
health. The managers of most of our colleges and 
seminaries have been waking up more and more to 
the importance of the subject. Some institutions 
have already built large gymnasiums and others are 
taking steps in that direction. 

It is reported on good authority that over fifty 
large institutions in our country have either adopted 
some regular system of physical culture or are mak- 
ing preparations for the same. So intimately con- 
nected is a proper care and development of the 
body with mental and moral improvement, that this 
reform cannot go backward or remain stationary. 
The more thoroughly the interdependent relations 
between the mind and the body are understood, 
the greater will be the value attached to a sound, 
healthy and well trained body. 

In this sketch of physical culture at Amherst 
some notice should be taken of the superior advan- 
tages there for carrying on this work. The first 
gymnasium, erected in 1860, became too small and 
inconvenient as the classes grew larger. As a 
result of the deep interest felt in this department 
by one of its own students— a graduate in the class 
of 1879— Mr. C. M. Pratt of Brooklyn, :N'. Y., the 
college is chiefly indebted for its new, magnificent 
building, called " Pratt Gymnasium." It was 
planned by Dr. Edward Hitchcock after many years 
experience as to what provisions were necessary in 
such an establishment, not only for conducting 
every variety of physical exercise but for securing 



15 



at the same time the comfort, improvement and 
health of the students. While the building has a 
large main hall for general exercises, it has numer- 
ous other rooms of different sizes, most conveniently 
constructed, located and arranged for all needful 
purposes. It has provisions for every kind of bath, 
with abundance of water, cold and warm. From a 
careful inspection of the apparatus, equipments, 
conveniences, &c., it would seem that everything 
was here provided that is possible for the highest 
welfare of the students. 

In closing this paper some account should be 
given of the measurements of students. We can- 
not here go into details, but only make a general 
statement. Upon the admission of every new class 
to college, each student submits to some sixty dif- 
ferent measurements of his body and its parts, such 
as weight, height, lung capacity, girth of chest, arm, 
&c., &c., and an exact record of all these measure- 
ments are kept. These examinations are repeated 
every year, and since they commenced, about twen- 
ty-five hundred different students have been thus 
measured. In a report just published by Dr. Hitch- 
cock of twenty-five years' experience in gymnastics, 
there are twelve tables containing the summing up 
or results of these measurements. They show an 
immense work— that thousands and thousands of 
figures have been employed to obtain these results. 
As an illustration, one table alone contains over 
600,000 figures. 

While these measurements have a present value 
to every student and to the cause generally, in the 



16 

course of time they become invaluable in aiding 
to settle some problems in vital statistics connected 
v^ith physiology, biology and anthropology. The 
statistics thus gathered will bear fruit through 
successive generations. 



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